Divinitas

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Divinitas

Written by Caleyndar
Website: http://cruelangel.net/divinitas

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A/N: This is one of those violent chapters. And this is your warning. Enough said.

jeazard: I don't hate Aether either. I have a soft spot for him. XD But I do acknowledge that he can be a real bastard at times. ^_^ Evil seme with the predatory smile. XD As for his relationship with Phoenix... well, I will say that Phoenix does trust Aether on some level to not kill him or hurt him permanently. No sane person would let another person do the type of things Aether does to him unless they trusted the other person. You could argue Phoenix doesn't have a choice, but I think if he were truly against Aether, he would fight a lot more and show a great deal more fear rather than give in when he's caught. It's almost like a game in that respect, or perhaps play acting where there are unwritten rules both the parties know and play by. So in that respect, I do think they are quite suited to one another, even though Phoenix is in chains most of the time... because he allows it in his own way to have those chains put on him. X_x I didn't make much sense, did I?

MidnightsKeeper: I don't like reading cliff-hangers either... so I take some perverse delight in writing them so others have to suffer it. BWAHAHAHAA. As for the split personality / artist idea, I've always know many artists are a bit eccentric, insane, brilliant, loners, etc, but not the multiple personality trait. So yes, lucky break for me there. XD To be honest, Divinitas has had a lot of "lucky breaks" in that respect. I picked Aether's name because it was latin and meant heaven/upper air on my friend's suggestion. She didn't tell me anything about what it meant beyond that. But I liked it, and I was in need of a name, so I picked it and ran with it. Several years later (recently...) I found out that Aether is also known as the fifth element: spirit or soul in some sources, so there you go... fitted like a charm. Another "lucky break" was Ash/Ashura. When Ash made his first appearance, I hadn't even thought about the Ten (Heaven) characters, and it was another case of, I NEED A NAME, GIMME, so I picked Ash because he was smoking in that first scene he appeared in. X_x When Ash's character was developed more, and I decided to make him a Ten/Heaven character, I was like... I need another name for him that isn't so modern... and I wanted a name that is linked with destruction... and my friend suggested Ashura, and it was like, that so works! Ash > Ashura! Yay! ... Yeah. In other words, no, I'm not a brilliant writer who does extensive research for their stories. I'm just... lucky, I guess. ^_^;;; Divinitas is just something I write for my own enjoyment more than anything else, that's the reason why there are quite a few overused and clichéd aspects to the story.

Anyway... enough rambling... on with the story!

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070: Tearing Butterfly Wings

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It was sleek, beautiful. It was for the God of Soul to use, so why wouldn’t it be? A black leather bound handle, and nine supple strips of the finest plaited hide, well oiled and glistening. For sewn into them were tiny glittering shards, protruding like sharp, hungry teeth. What looked like glass, but could never be something so cheap.

Phoenix couldn’t tear his eyes away from it, that black torturous piece of exquisite craftsmanship. It had yet to even touch his skin, yet already his skin crawled, shivered at the imagined sensation of those multiple diamond shards slicing lines of red deep into him.

“I believe the common name for it is a ‘Cat O’ Nine Tails’… It’s an interesting piece of work isn’t it?” Aether’s silky voice asked, a single finger tracing the length of the short handle in a way that was too suggestive. “Though this is the first time I’ve seen one with diamond shards embedded into the braids. Ingenious, don’t you think? The ideas they come up with to inflict pain and suffering.”

The God of Fire didn’t answer, only closed his eyes, shutting out the image of that flogger from his mind, if only for a moment. He knew what a slash from a similar weapon could do. Seen it often enough in this very city when he’d crawled the streets like a rat, searching for food, those public punishments they seemed so fond of dishing out.

Footsteps, echoing faintly as they fell on the stone-slabbed floor. Then they stopped, close enough for Phoenix’s skin to feel the heat.

Phoenix almost cried out “don’t!”, a moment before Aether’s fingertips pressed themselves against his bare, ash dusted stomach, but bit his teeth against it, as if letting it escape would be a sign of weakness. Instead, he only let out a faint hiss, muscles tightening where Aether’s fingers touched with such misleading tenderness.

“Stop searching,” Aether’s voice whispered, next to his ear, strands of golden hair brushing against Phoenix’s cheek. “For a place in this world that would create such atrocities to be used on you. The only place you belong is beside me.”

“Funny,” Phoenix finally bit out, unable to help himself, unable to disperse the desire to lash out like a wounded animal. “You’re the one who intends to use it.”

“But if it did not exist, I could not use it.” Such a sweet, poisonous voice, spilling from such luscious lips. “The twisted religion of this realm teaches the worship and belief in the God of Soul… it taught you to depend on me, it taught you that prayers and offerings to me would give you protection and help when you so desperately needed it. My priests always gave the impression that all were welcomed to worship, and all would be helped and saved if they did so. And so you believed it, didn’t you? Through the teachings you heard, hidden away where no one could see you…

“But do you know? That the Children of Fire who were brought here… that this was what was given to them?” Phoenix’s eyes snapped open, unwanted images and fear dancing behind his eyes. “You might blame your fate on the villagers who believed you a demon spirit sent from Jigoku to inflict fire and destruction upon them. But the priests are not as stupid or as superstitious as those backward villagers. They didn’t try to kill the Children of Fire by fire, or by such slow and indefinite means as burying them alive. My priests loathed the Children of Fire. They associated them with destruction, with death, with fire and pain. So they flogged them. With such a weapon as this. Until they died. Bled to death, or from the shock of the never ceasing pain. Whichever came first. But of course… I think they used glass shards, rather than diamonds.” Sharp, hurtful smile.

“Do you want to kill me then?” Phoenix spat out, revolted by the story. It made him sick to his stomach. And to have it told to him by the fucking deity that should have protected, or at the very least, helped those Elemental Children who were created through his negligence… to have it told by him in such a nonchalance manner… “Fuck you, Aether!” Stupid, to jerk and pull at the unforgiving chains. But his body was beyond reason. He could feel blood trickling down his arms. “And if I had been one of those that were tortured to death here? Would you have fucking cared?! You, who would have left me to rot had it not been for Deus who picked me out of that grave and shined me up to present to you on a golden platter! I hate you! I should have killed you when I had the chance!”

Aether just smirked, taking a step back, fingers disengaging with a slight push from Phoenix’s taunt stomach. “Should we start then?” the God of Soul inquired, all conversational and deadly smiles. “To let you taste what befell your dead brothers and sisters of Fire?”

There wasn’t a chance to reply. The whip was lifted, and touched to his side. It wasn’t a lash, too gentle to ever be that. It was just laid against his side, like one might lay a piece of clothing over their own skin. Yet that was more than enough.

Every single knife keen shard sunk into Phoenix’s flesh, hungry, starving for the pain, for the blood. It was like his skin was nothing, the way it didn’t resist at all to the intrusion, so sharp were those pieces of diamond. So keen, so eager, they didn’t care at all for the bitten down hiss of pain that escaped from Phoenix’s lips.

“So pretty, Phoenix. The way your body bleeds. The spider webs your blood forms as it runs from each shard and into each other. I almost regret how fast you heal, that this beauty can’t last longer.” Soft, contented whisper. Child playing with a butterfly.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the flogger was dragged from his side and diagonally across Phoenix’s bare stomach as Aether walked around to Phoenix’s back. Like cat claws, yes, that. Claws that dug in and raked through skin and flesh, leaving lines of red that bloomed and overflowed until it formed little cascades of brilliant red flowing down Phoenix’s stomach.

“I do admire you, Phoenix. That you can endure such things without screaming,” Aether commented as the tails of the Cat O’ Nine reached the other side and was torn savagely from Phoenix’s flesh with a flick of Aether’s wrist. “But you shouldn’t hold back on my account. I want to hear you scream because of me.”

“As if I’d scream on purpose just to please you,” the God of Fire snarled, feeling the sharp stinging pains fade as his body sealed the surface wounds. He could deal with this. If it was just this, his body could deal with it. This was no different from the daggers and the multiple katana, and nothing could be worse than the tearing of his wings.

Soft, false laughter, and then fingers tracing down the middle of his back that sent an irresistible shudder along Phoenix’s spine. “You’re hurting. Your back is tense, your arms are strained. It makes it worse, that you have wings conceal beneath your skin,” Aether mused, those gentle fingers brushing aside the longer strands of Phoenix’s flaming red hair to leave his back completely naked. “Didn’t I mention it to you before? That wings are a deities greatest weakness. Their symbol of divinity, yet a deities’ wings will not heal as fast, and the pain experienced is a thousand times more intense. Maim a deity not by cutting its body, but by piercing its wings.

“I wonder… how much would it take for this weapon to strip the skin from your back… And how much longer after that before your wings are reached and shredded to bloody strips,” Aether breathed, voice barely audible, so low and husky, filled with the dark desire to hurt for the sake of hurting.

His body instinctively braced for it, that first, savage lash. It was an illusion, how it didn’t seem to hurt so much at first, just a heavy, hard, stinging slap with such weight and frustration behind it. But then the teeth sunk in, a dozen vipers biting down on their prey, poison injected through skin and flesh, burning away at the fragile wings beneath, before being ripped away with a wet, tearing sound.

Phoenix bit his lip, hard. But even then, the muffled scream slipped through, a pained sound that sounded too much like a dying animal. And then the second strike, without so much as a pause, fierce, sharp, ripping, shredding, and his scream burst from his lips, long, keening, ragged as his body fought for air.

A third, a forth. Each gripped his flesh and raked it to shreds, and he could strangely hear the splatter of his blood as it dripped from his body, was flung off the leather straps of the flogger. How he heard them above his own screams, he didn’t know. Or how he heard the tinkle of his chains as his body swayed, or the movement of the cloth that adorned Aether’s body with each swung of his arm, when his scream rebounded so fully around the small prison, again and again until he wished the pain would stop if only to silence his pathetic screams and short panting gasps.

His mind was trying so desperately to grip onto something, something that wasn’t related to the pain, to the feel of his blood flowing in rivulets down his body, soaking through the remains of his pants, dripping from his feet. Reason. Justification. Why Aether was doing this. Trying to piece together the broken logic, yet his own screams broke apart the baseless thoughts, shattering them until it became nothing but pure anger and rage.

Yes, because there was no logic, no reason. Punish for the sake of punishing, hurt because the screams were music, the blood’s scent intoxicating, and everything was a reaction, undeniable proof of existence to that fiend.

And then something broke. The futile attempts to refocus away from the pain were shattered as the cruel flogger tore through to his elemental wings.

Phoenix’s eyes widened, mouth open in a silent scream of agony as his entire body arched forward, seized in violent red spasm of pain that shot through to every nerve ending, excruciating beyond any of the lashes thus far, intensifying again and again until it engulfed the youth’s mind in pain and blood and sent him to the brink of insanity.

Fire flickered as each lash tore away more flesh, exposed more of the hidden elemental wings. Fire that flickered and wavered as the God it belonged to drowned in pain and his vision became nothing but a sea of blood.

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Red, everything was tinted red. As if blood had covered his eyes, and all he could see was the colour of blood.

He could heard his own breathing, his own heartbeat, feel it pulse when he squeezed his little hand into a fist. He was hiding, and his heart hammered with fear. He had heard their cruel laughter and hid.

There was the sound of a babbling brook nearby, water whispering to itself as it traversed over rocks and between reeds. Somehow, the water looked like blood.

They were by the body of water, giggling and laughing, gathered around a large rock that jutted up from the ground like an alter for sacrifice. A group of children, normal, untainted children who had family and friends and food and a roof over their heads. They were doing something that shouldn’t be done, their whispers and laughing words betrayed that much.

‘I should stop them.’ That thought floated silently through the child’s mind, small, dissipating without being contemplated. There really was no chance of that happening, was there. One little boy against so many… a boy whom they could gladly beat up in place of whatever had taken their interest thus far.

‘They will leave soon. They will leave soon, and then… then…’

They had left soon after. And the boy with the red flaming hair and eyes that reflected hell’s fire darted from his hiding place to the alter-like rock.

The sight shocked and pained him.

What was once a large and beautiful butterfly, flip-flopping on the rock, struggling to flap its remains of its once brilliant wings. It struggled so much, and so pathetically. It had begged, the child knew it had, this butterfly with its black and blood red wings. Begged to be left alone, begged to be freed. But those children hadn’t listened. Just pinned in to the rock and sliced up its wings until they became the tattered remains of silk or gossamer. To live in such a state… would it have been better to have begged for death? Did it beg for that now?

Tiny trembling fingers reached out, flesh tone tainted red touching the ruins of wings. It fluttered so pathetically against his skin. Would it be any consolation now, to grant a death plea? When he had stood by and done nothing when he might have saved this beautiful insect?

Fire swirled on his finger tip, engulfing the ruined creature. And then it was gone.

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His screams rang around the rough stone walls. Again and again, with barely a pause between strikes that ripped away more flesh, that tore deeper into his wings. Every part of his body felt like it was burning with ice, numb yet hurting to the point where pain didn’t seem to exist anymore because it was his entire world. There was blood dribbling from his mouth, down his back. Blood everywhere. His throat was torn from the endless screaming.

How often had these walls listened to such unbearable things, seen such brutality and violence? The thought idly crossed Phoenix’s mind, ‘I would not want to be these walls.’

Aether paused, bored perhaps, and wanting entertainment. The latest lash had fallen, jagged diamond shards glistening with blood sunk deep into flesh and flickering fiery feathers. They shone red, dazzling in the firelight.

“Forty-four lashes, Phoenix. Your back is in tatters, and your blood scent is everywhere. It no longer heals as it should. Your ruined wings are preventing that,” Aether’s voice said quietly, no longer smiling, yet holding that same quality, that same desire to inflict pain, to hurt.

“So red, and so bright, Phoenix… your blood, your feathers. Do you know…? I want to sink my hands into that warmth, feel your blood and flesh and the brush of your feathers against my finger tips…”

The forgotten memory from his childhood was still floating on the surface of his mind, covered in the colour of blood. The image of that butterfly, still alive, with wings torn and defiled to such a state wouldn’t leave him, had haunted him for many nights afterwards before it had been buried so deeply in his thoughts. If he’d begged, would they have stopped…? They who hadn’t listened to the butterfly’s silent pleas.

Would you stop if I begged, Aether?

He could feel Aether’s fingers close, a hair’s breadth from touching his lacerated back. Could already feel and hear his own screams tearing from his throat as that hand stroked through his flayed flesh, digging deeper, causing more fragrant blood to well forth and course over that slender damaging hand.

“I beg you… stop.”

The words slipped out between his bitten and bleeding lips, a whisper, barely heard. Words he had swore he would never ever utter to the God of Soul. I will never beg you for anything, Aether. Some part of him fell further in that moment, lost in the abyss filled with darkness and loathing. But it was a wonder, a test perhaps.

Silence. Stillness. Just his panting gasps, the slow steady drip of blood into the pool at his feet. Somehow it sounded almost musical, that drip, drip, drip. When had he lost his boots?

And then the straps of the Cat O’ Nine Tails were lifted. Each tail carefully extracted from his back, keen little blades eased from his ruined flesh. It hurt, of course it hurt, like pulling out barbs that caused as much damage going in as they did coming out. But the God of Fire bit his lip, tasting blood again, refusing to let the little gasps and moans escape for these tortured walls to hear.

The last lash was removed, and the flogger dropped unceremoniously to the floor. The God of Soul lifted his hand, the one that had held the flogger. Smeared and speckled with blood. To deal out such violence, it was a first. Did it make him feel better? Did it somehow soothe his anger and frustration? But it had been a shock. To hear those words from Phoenix’s mouth. It had stopped his actions cold. Because his Phoenix had never begged, would never beg… and for him to use those words. It was not right.

The iron collar and shackles clattered to the floor, the adjoining chains making a mess of noise as they landed after the binders. Phoenix’s body crumpled to the ground, landing face first in the pool of his own cooling blood, wanting to curl in on itself but unable to do even that. It was a pathetic sight. One which should never involve a deity.

“You should not have said those words to me.” There was a hard, rejecting edge to Aether’s voice. Something bordering on disgust.

Phoenix shifted, struggling to control the violent spasms that shook his entire body. He wanted to laugh. If he could have, he would have replied to Aether’s comment. A long, endless barrage of accusations and insults.

You expect me to be a toy that shows no weakness, that never breaks. Yet you do everything in your power to break and shatter me. You except me to submit to you, to oblige to every whim, yet when I give in, the first words out of your mouth say I should not have. What is it you want, Aether? The impossible, a contradiction.

Something clicked then. A realisation whilst Phoenix’s fingers clawed in the clammy pool of his darkening red blood. Aether did not understand. Could not understand. Not Phoenix’s feelings, not his own. That was why he was able to do this, flog the one he claimed to need and want to the point where that deity could not even struggle onto hands and knees.

The creaking door opened, and the footsteps carried the God of Soul from the stone prison before the slamming of metal against metal rung around the abandoned chamber, hurting Phoenix’s ears.

Oh, how absolutely fitting. To be discarded here like so much trash. The hate flared. Not at the pain that radiated from his back and encircled his entire chest and limbs. Not even at Aether for being the one who inflicted that pain. It flared at being left here. At Aether for leaving him here. That was the final insult.

He bit down on the hatred, held it close to his heart. Had to. Or else he might have broken down and cried. Why why why did you leave me here? Don’t you always take care of me after you’ve cut me, stabbed me? Lick the blood you’ve so liberally spilt and whisper dark cruel words in my ears? Why did you leave me!

Crimson eyes squeezed shut, teeth grinding against teeth. Stop this already. He was not that pathetic or weak.

His lacerated skin and flesh wanted to heal. The tightness and tugging sensation ripping periodically down his back told him as much. But broken feathers, torn and ragged and bent at odd angles protruded from his back, obstructed the healing. They needed to be smoothed down and tucked back in before the skin could close. But the very thought brought a tightness and panic crashing down on him. The promise of more pain froze him. He couldn’t, just couldn’t, reach behind himself and do what needed to be done. This was different from then, from that first time on the beach with his dislocated wings of drenched white. That pain had been bearable. But this. This felt like a stabbing of a thousand needles into his soul and it left him breathless.

Fear began then, fear of being left here forever, abandoned and alone and in pain for the rest of eternity. Aether wouldn’t leave him, he wouldn’t!

But wouldn’t he? Who wanted a doll that broke down at the first taste of pain. One that begged so pathetically and shamelessly.

An endless nightmare with no release. The hurtful thoughts just kept on circling, no matter how many times Phoenix tried to push them away or hold onto one that might give him some strength. And no one came at all. No one offered any help, any release from this hell. Not the bastard priests, not even the other Elemental Gods.

It was close to dawn when unconsciousness finally took the God of Fire into its embrace, his thoughts and emotions so muddled with pain he could barely even remember his own name.

But one thought remained.

… this weakness and dependence sickens even me.

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End 070, Continued in 071